


Grounded

by Lbilover



Category: Over the Garden Wall (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-01
Updated: 2016-12-01
Packaged: 2018-09-03 16:19:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8720482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lbilover/pseuds/Lbilover
Summary: Resuming her human form is not as easy as Beatrice thought it would be.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Agh, this is angsty and I do apologize, but Beatrice looks so wistful at the end of the story.

The gleaming golden scissors with their stylized heron design are beautiful, but Beatrice regards them with a mixture of fear and loathing. A part of her cravenly wishes that Wirt had never taken them from Adelaide's, that she'd accepted his invitation to go home with him and Gregory and remained Beatrice the bluebird forever. 

She wonders how badly it will hurt to cut off her wings with their razor-sharp edges. Vividly she recalls her father carving the Thanksgiving turkey each year, how he would delicately insert the point of the knife into the joint and then with a sharp snap of his wrist severe the skin and tendon that held wing and body together. 

A sick feeling invades Beatrice's stomach, and not because in her current form the thought of eating turkey holds no appeal. She imagines the scissors severing _her_ skin and tendons, snapping hollow brittle bones, her wings falling to the ground leaving her flightless, earthbound...

But human again. She has to remind herself of that. She'll be human again, and so will her family, who were turned into bluebirds because of her ill temper and bad judgement.

_I told Wirt I would do anything to save them, and I will._

Her bird-heart beats a rapid tattoo as Beatrice uses a wing and a clawed foot to position the open scissors at the juncture of her opposing wing and her body. When they are in place, she shuts her eyes tight, and before she can lose her nerve, she closes them with as much force as she can muster.

In the split-second before her nerve endings register what has happened, Beatrice recalls Wirt's devastation when he realized that she'd betrayed him and Gregory, his anguished expression and how he'd sounded when he said, "I thought we were friends." 

_This is my punishment for my betrayal_ , she thinks.

But the pain is less than she'd anticipated, a sharp bite that immediately dulls. As if she is simply shedding a garment, the wing drops away, falls to the ground, bright blue feathers trailing limply in the dust. Unanticipated pain, far worse than the physical one, flares in Beatrice's heart as she stares at the wing before quickly averting her gaze. 

"Anything for my family," she whispers, tears of loss and grief darkening her rust-orange breast feathers. Moments later the second wing lies forlornly beside its mate. 

Before it has even touched the ground, Beatrice's transformation is complete, and her tears no longer fall on feathers, but the pale blue bodice of a stuff gown. As Adelaide had promised, Beatrice is human again. She waits for a sense of joy and relief that doesn't come. Her new-old body feels lumpen and earthbound, bones heavy as the ball and chain that had weighted her down in Pottsville. She tries to move, finds herself awkwardly flapping her useless arms. Flushing, she drops them to her sides. A small sob escapes her.

She is still clutching the scissors, fingers curled claw-like around them. A few scarlet drops of blood speckle the heron's beak, and quickly Beatrice slips them into her apron pocket, as much to hide them from her sight as to keep them safe. She tries not to look at her severed wings either, but she can't stop herself. Only, when she looks down, they have vanished. All that remains in their place is a single feather.

Beatrice stoops to pick it up, flushes again when she bobs her head as if to take it in a non-existent beak. She uses her fingers instead, smooths the bluebird feather between them, a gentle riffle of sleek and fluffy barbs against her skin. This small treasure she will keep, she decides, in memory of Wirt and Greg and Jason Funderburker and the happiest days she has ever known. She takes a handkerchief from her pocket, carefully, tenderly, wraps the feather inside it, and tucks it into her bodice, nestled against her heart. 

And then Beatrice begins to walk, thinking how much sooner she would be home if only she could fly.


End file.
